Northbrook Musical Theatre graduate, Richard Russell Edwards has been asked to reprise his role in the critically acclaimed play, “The Pirates of Penzance”. After studying Musical Theatre at Northbrook’s well-regarded theatre arts department, he went onto study his MA at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Edwards plays Connie in the Sacha Regan’s all male version of the play, which is showing at Brighton’s Theatre Royal 26
th
– 30
th
May. Visit
http://piratesisback.com/
for tickets.

After starting out on a 4 week run at the 50 seater venue, The Union Theatre in 2009, Pirates has gone from strength to strength, receiving outstanding reviews. In Spring 2010, they moved to the oldest surviving music hall in the world, the 300-seater Wilton's Music Hall where the show ran to full houses for six weeks. People began raving about this unique and fun production and Pirates were invited to play the 900-seater Rose Theatre in Kingston for a fortnight.

Unbeknown to the show, representatives from Australia and The United States were sitting in on one of the shows at the Rose Theatre and the Pirates were invited to set sail to Australia. The Pirates undertook a national tour of Australia, playing in Canberra, Mount Gambier, Renmark, Perth, Wollongong and Adelaide and Sydney, where it sold out in. Cate Blanchett's Sydney Theatre, Pirates played to full houses in the main house for three-weeks.

This is a truly beautiful production in which Richard is a stand out character. Here are some of the rave reviews:-

As brilliant and heretical as Matthew Bourne's vision of Swan Lake ... It hits that perfect tone between silliness and sentimentality that this delightful operetta warrants. Pure joy.' - Michael Coveney, Whatsonstage

'It is an object lesson in the art of successful G&S: don't monkey around with the inherent silliness; instead take it seriously but not earnestly ... Immensely charming.' - Ian Shuttleworth, The Financial Times

'A coup ... the staging is ebullient and charming, choreography is riotously inventive ... this should leave you grinning like a Jolly Roger.' - Sam Marlowe, The Times

'Fun from high seas with perfect execution THIS British, all-male Pirates is a delight, a freshly scrubbed and very funny production in which the musical and verbal wit of Gilbert and Sullivan is privileged over everything else.' - The Sydney Morning Herald